Abstract
The combination of these words: ήδύν–ἄλυπον was labelled ‘litoteslike’ in a former note in this journal (JHSciv [1984] 177); the present note aims at suggesting a more fitting label.The meaning of the words is clear: Kritias describes the poet Anakreon as an extremely pleasant man: ‘sweet, not sour’, ‘pleasant, not a sore-head’. This high degree of pleasantness is made clear by stating the central idea of pleasantness (ἡδύν) and juxtaposing to it the negation (ἀ-) of its opposite (-λυπ-); this is tantamount to the use of a litotes, which points in its turn to extra emphasis:cf. e.g. Hom. Il. xviii 46, where ‘the meaning of the nameNemertesseems to be strengthened by the immediately following nameApseudes' (JHSciv [1984] 177).
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